BRENDAN, BRANDON or BRANDAN (c. 484-578), Irish saint and hero of a legendary voyage in the Atlantic, is said to have been born at Tralee in Kerry in A.D. 484. Mediaeval historians usually call him Brendan of Clonfert, or Brendan son of Finnloga, to distinguish him from his contemporary, St. Brendan of Birr (573). Little is known of the historical Brendan, who died in 578 as abbot of a Benedictine monastery which he had founded twenty years previously at Clonfert in eastern Galway. The story of his voyage across the Atlantic to the "Promised Land of the Saints," after wards designated "St. Brendan's Island," ranks among the most celebrated of the mediaeval sagas of western Europe. Its tradi tional date is 565-573. The legend is found, in prose or verse and with many variations, in Latin, French, English, Saxon, Flemish, Irish, Welsh, Breton and Scottish Gaelic. Although it does not occur in the writings of any Arabian geographer, several of its incidents—such as the landing on a whale in mistake for an island —belong also to Arabic folk-literature. Many of Brendan's fabu lous adventures seem to be borrowed from the Irish saga of Maelduin or Maeldune, and others belong also to Scandinavian mythology. The oldest extant version of the legend is the nth century Navigatio Brendani.
Only in was the apparition of St. Brendan's island ex plained as an effect of mirage.